You've Really Put Your Hoof In It This Time
by spittlepig
Summary: Eddie learns that even with the best intentions, you always have consequences…
1. Just Give Me The Alka-Seltzer Plus, Or I...

TITLE: You've Really Put Your Hoof In It This Time  
AUTHOR: Ananova Crowe  
E-MAIL: Out4HughJackman@aol.com  
SUMMARY:Basically Eddie gets a cold from his proposal in the rain (if you don't know what the heck i'm talking about, read Neophiliactic Bull + Psychotic Cow = True Love) and all hell breaks loose!!!!!  
DEDICATED TO: Annabella Bertha - wherever she may be, caring for our faithful patriots…  
DISCLAIMER: I'm still waiting to own the Someone Like You video, but in the meantime i'll help to give you a warm, fuzzy feeling...that will need medication to clear up... :)  
  
THE STORY UNFOLDS  
  
CHAPTER I  
Just Give Me The Alka-Seltzer Plus, Or If That Doesn't Work, Just Take A Shovel Up To The Side Of My Head  
  
"Oh, my pooh wittle baby." Jane cooed, holding herself over Eddie's pathetic frame. His nose was red with irritation and a sweat had broken out across his forehead, a cold ravaging through him.  
  
Eddie had his eyes closed and his mouth open to compensate for his stuffed nose and a tissue box held perilously in his hand. He had thrown off the covers in the middle of the night, unable to stand the heat, and now lay exposed with only his boxer briefs on.  
  
"How do you feel?" Jane asked, tucking her hair behind her ear as she looked down at her second-time-proposer.  
  
"Like shit…" Eddie said through a completely stuffed nose, raising a hand to rub at his eye.  
  
"You look like shit," Jane smiled, lowering herself so that she kissed the end of his irritated nose before sliding off the bed.  
  
"Thanks." Eddie said sarcastically, stifling a sneeze by raising a crunched tissue to his nose.  
  
"Whatever I can do to help…" Jane sneered kindly, about to disappear into the hallway to go to the bathroom.   
  
"I know something you can do to help." Eddie suddenly got a devilish look on his face.  
  
"Oh? And what's that?" Jane smiled broadly, showing off all her white teeth.  
  
Eddie only stuck up his first finger and bid her to come closer, and it wasn't until she was leaning over him with her hands wrapped around her chest to keep her shirt from drooping that he told her.  
  
With a surprised scream and Jane's giddy laughing, Eddie pulled her down on top of him and began kissing her up and down her neck, his hands fastening her against him.  
  
"You can stay home with me…" He mentioned between kisses, having to stop eventually before he passed out to asphyxiation.   
  
Jane pouted out her bottom lip and looked pathetically at him. "You know I'd love to baby, but I have to go to China's 'Bring-A-Parent-To-School-Day' and then I have job interviews all the rest of the afternoon."  
  
Eddie sighed and let his head roll back so that his chin stuck up in the air.  
  
Jane licked her lips and kissed him gently on the throat. "Well…" She started, waiting until he turned his head back to face her with puffy eyes.  
  
"I suppose I could cancel lunch with Liz…"   
  
"No," Eddie pulled it together. "I'll survi-" But as he tried to speak, a coughing fit caught him off guard and he had to sit up abruptly, bumping heads with Jane. After a moment, his stomach muscles relaxed and he fell back onto the bed, groaning.  
  
"Are you sure baby?" Jane asked, holding her head even though it didn't really hurt.  
  
Eddie took a deep breath and sat up again, grabbing her arm and pulling her hand away from her head. "I'm positive." He whispered, gently placing his lips against where she had had her hand, kissing it better.  
  
She looked at him in a serious wonder.  
  
"I'll be fine." He tried to assure her. "It's only a stupid cold-" Suddenly, his face twisted into a disgruntled look and his hands flashed up to his face, cupping his mouth and nose. A split second later, a violent sneeze echoed from his lungs, snapping his torso forward, and strangely he stayed hunched over.  
  
"Eddie?" Jane had a feeling of worry slide over her as she watched him just sit there.  
  
"Yeah?" He tried to answer nonchalantly, but from his bent position, it sounded weird.  
  
"You okay?" She put a hand on his unusually hot shoulder, rubbing across his shoulder blade with her thumb.   
  
"…Yeah…" He said in an incredibly weak voice, barely able to even get the syllable out without losing it, he wiped tears away from his eyes.  
  
Eddie brought a hand to his stomach and a grimace flashed across his face as he tried to lie back, but failed.   
  
"You sure?" Jane gingerly pressed on his stomach right next to his hand, making him double over in pain.  
  
"Uh-huh," she said skeptically. "I'm calling you a nursemaid for today." She said, rising from the bed and heading towards the hallway once again.  
  
"No Jane. Aahh." He cried out in pain as the leaning forward thing sent a stab of pain through his stomach. "I just pulled a muscle, that's all…" He said the last part through clenched teeth.   
  
"I'm sorry baby," Jane called from the kitchen, "but I'm not gonna let you sit at home wounded and with a major cold. I'm calling a nursemaid and that's the end of it."  
  
Eddie frowned and crossed his arms over his chest, disgruntled anger building inside of him. He waited and listened to the muttered conversation Jane had over the phone before she hung up and walked back into the room.  
  
Eddie only looked at her from beneath his eyebrows.  
  
"Baby, I'm doing this for you and you know it." She came forward and sat on the bed next to him, looking sullenly at his demeanor. She leaned forward and took his head between her hands, kissing his forehead.  
  
Eddie sighed and looked surrenderingly to her, finally nodding his head and grimacing as he tried to lie back again, this time taking his time.  
  
"So," Jane slapped Eddie on the knee and rose from the bed again, heading into the closet, reemerging with a pair of gray sleeping pants and a black tee shirt. "I have to get you dressed before the nursemaid gets here or she might fall desperately in love with a married man."  
  
"What's a little obstacle anyway?" Eddie joked, finally lying back against the bed.  
  
Jane faked an overly sarcastic laugh and punched him in the stomach, getting him to howl.  
  
"Ow!" Eddie retorted, scowling at her after cowering in pain. He watched as Jane began to slip his pants onto the bottom of his feet. "You know I can dress myself, right?"   
  
"I know," Jane smiled. "It's just more fun this way…" She watched him shrug his shoulders and collapse back into the cushion, loving the attention. After some combat with getting his shirt on, Eddie now lay clothed enough to be seen by society.  
  
Jane looked at the digital clock next to the bed and nearly jumped in the air. "I am sooo late!" She breathed, forgetting everything as she dashed to the bathroom.  
  
Eddie only laughed and idly took his time as he scooted over on the bed, in the general direction of his wheelchair. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and gingerly sat up, his muscles arguing.  
  
Then he stood, turned, and sat down into his wheelchair, sucking up the pain like a real man. Then he set off towards the kitchen, nonchalantly noticing that China was up and out of her room.  
  
"Hey baby?" Jane called to him from the bathroom, a comb between her teeth as she held up her hair in the mirror. Eddie stopped at the end of the hall, waiting. "Could you make China breakfast?"   
  
Eddie looked around the corner to see China sitting up at the counter with a bowl in front of her, a spoon in her mouth, and a book set beside the bowl, and she sat and ate and read. Then Eddie spotted the little black and white body on the other side of China's bowl.  
  
"She's already done it…" Eddie called out with a smile, rolling forward and coming around behind China.  
  
'Morning daddy.' China smiled widely through a mouthful of bits of Fruit Loops and casually went back to reading.   
  
'You know,' Eddie signed, rousing China from her book again. 'Sushi shouldn't drink our milk.' He plucked the kitten from its spot by the side of the cereal bowl with a small meow, setting it down on the floor.   
  
China looked bewildered for a moment before flashing a big grin. 'She was helping me eat breakfast.'  
  
'Well, mommy's not gonna like that. So don't let mommy see.' Eddie smiled and rubbed his hand across her head, ruffling her black hair.  
  
Holding back a sneeze again, Eddie pushed himself away from the kitchen and headed towards the living room, a sudden headache making its presence known to him.  
  
"Alright," Jane came out in a flurry as Eddie was moving himself onto the couch. 'Come on, we have to go. Are you done eating?' She signed to China who nodded.  
  
'Go brush your teeth.' She shooed China past her as she grabbed up all her and China's stuff and did a double check in her head. After a couple moments, China reemerged and smiled up at her mom, showing her newly cleaned teeth.  
  
'Beautiful.' She commented. 'Now go kiss daddy goodbye.' Jane followed China over to her father and watched as she kissed him lightly on the cheek.   
  
Eddie grabbed her shirt with his fingers and pulled it back and forth in fun. 'You have fun at school today. You promise?' He asked.  
  
China nodded enthusiastically and moved out of the way.  
  
'Go on baby, I'll meet you downstairs.' Jane signed, China taking her stuff from Jane's arms and running off outside.  
  
"How do I look?" Jane asked, too hurried to worry about it now anyway.  
  
"Like a million dollars."  
  
But his words were overlapped by hers so he doubted that she had heard him.   
  
"Okay, the nursemaid will be here soon and I'll try and be home as soon as possible, but I can't make any commitments." While she talked to him, her eyes were searching desperately throughout the living room floor.  
  
"That's fine…" Eddie said, waiting until she had dove for the shoes she had been looking for and coming back up.   
  
"I'll miss you baby," Jane said, kissing him on lips while trying desperately to haphazardly to get her shoe on at the same time.  
  
"I'll miss you too, good luck." He called out as she shut the door behind her.   
  
With that, his family was gone.  
  
Finally, he could have some peace and quiet.  
  
Coughing and cringing for a moment, he sat back and groped for the remote control, finally finding it and flipping on the television.  
  
For an hour and a half he sat there, going through at least eight Kleenexes before he finally forced himself to get up and go the bathroom.   
  
What a wonderful morning.  
  
  
  



	2. A Person Can Take Only So Much Comfortin...

This is what happens when you have too much time on your hands and too much Diet Coke in your system...  
  
CHAPTER II  
A Person Can Take Only So Much Comforting. Otherwise It Would Be Cruel And Unusual Punishment.  
  
Eddie had just settled back and gotten comfortable just as there came a rather loud knock at the door, the knock becoming constant as though the person was fixing to eventually break through the door with their fist.  
  
"Hold on!" Eddie tried to yell out, but the knocks kept coming so he figured his words must have come out intelligible. Sighing in anger, he tried desperately to push himself back into his wheelchair and maneuver it around the couch.  
  
"I'm coming god dammit!" He yelled, not really caring if they understood him or not. His head was throbbing with the migraine and the constant pounding was only making it that much worse.  
  
He took a deep breath as he opened the door, about to say 'Can I help you?' with forced graciousness, but instead, he found his words stuck halfway up in his throat as he took in the woman before him.  
  
Standing in his doorway was a 6'5" bearded woman who was built like, in the worse sense of the word, a sumo wrestler. Rolls, upon rolls of fatty flesh were crammed into a little, white dress that looked like it was about to explode from over-compaction.  
  
He couldn't help but have a double take on this woman standing before him.  
  
Her disgustingly obvious bleach-blonde wig tilted to one side of her head and nested a rather large, boldly white hair clip. Her skin was frighteningly pale as though it had never seen the light.  
  
Her eyebrows kind of reminded Eddie of two black caterpillars that had accidentally died on her forehead, shading a pair of hard, steel gray eyes that were so bloodshot that not even the white showed through.  
  
Dark, purple bags of sleeplessness hooked under her eyes, seeming to be at least an inch in depth, swooping down on her cheeks. Her rounded nose nearly swallowed her entire face and a terrible three o'clock shadow shaded her upper lip.  
  
The only makeup she bothered to use was a vibrant red lipstick that made her puckering lips so bright they could pass for a traffic light.   
  
And to top off her truly unforgettable face, thick, black whiskers poked out of random spots on her chin, flaunting like lampposts against her white skin.  
  
He had to hold back the urge to gag as the smell of her assaulted his breathing rights.   
  
A plain, silver cross hung heavily on an incredibly long chain, the cross dangerously close to being swallowed up by the woman's boldly audacious exposé of her cleavage.   
  
Clipped almost inconspicuously onto the chest of her dingy, white jacket was a pin with the name BERTHA in stenciled, black lettering and a sparkling red cross sticker stuck next to it.  
  
"You Alden?" The woman boomed, her voice so deep that she had the effect of thunder rolling through the room, almost manly.  
  
"Y-y-yes…" Eddie's pulse began to race as he suddenly felt his life to be in danger.  
  
"You da one dat's sick?" Her verbalization was slathered thickly with a German accent that almost slaughtered her words unintelligible.   
  
"Yes…" That's all he could bring to his throat at the moment.  
  
"I your nurse for today," She stomped into the room, her white tennis shoes doing little to quiet her footfalls.   
  
Eddie blinked away the sweat from his eyes and cleared his throat, trying to force out conversation. "I take it your name is Bertha…" He smiled, only to drop it as she looked at him in confusion.  
  
"It says on your nametag…" He said meekly, quickly pointing to where he had read the name, then quick to pull in his appendages as if she might bite them off.  
  
She looked down at her chest and ran a hotdog-like finger over the lettering. "No. Name is Annabella. Bertha last name. Annabella no fit on nametag." She stuck a thumb into her chest, proudly exploiting her name.  
  
"You call me Annabella. Good for you?" She raised a shaggy eyebrow towards him, seeming to dare him to object.  
  
"That's fine," Eddie laughed lightly, trying desperately to ease the discomfort and bring down his rising temperature.   
  
Her appalling eyes stayed locked on him for a couple more seconds before tearing off as she waddled into the room, taking a long sniff through her nose. Her fanned, white skirt shifted nervously over her butt and thighs, repulsing Eddie.  
  
"So dis your kitchen?" She thundered, spreading her arms wide in the direction of the fridge and countertop. She turned to him and smiled widely, showing a mouthful of crooked yellow teeth.   
  
"Yeah," Eddie smiled back, wiping the collected sweat away from his face and running the clasped kleenex under his nose. As she turned back to face the kitchen again, Eddie shut the door and cringed inwardly, swearing with all his heart that he was going to get Jane back for this, even if it was the last thing he did.  
  
He took a moment to recollect himself before turning around and beginning to push himself back over to the couch. He cinched his eyes shut as the woman began loudly opening and closing cupboards, sending flares of pain through Eddie's head.  
  
"So why you in dat wheelchair?" The woman asked, standing up from her crouched position behind the counter, a pot in her hand.  
  
Eddie paused a minute, looking at her.   
  
Why did she want to know that? Was she planning on bashing him over the head with the pot when she found out he was chair-ridden? No, she would've done it by now.  
  
"I, uh, I got hurt and had to get an operation." He didn't really remember a lot about it, only what Jane had told him, but she sugarcoated most of it, so he couldn't be sure on anything.  
  
"So nothing wrong wid dem feet o' yours?" Eddie shook his head in complete confusion.  
  
Annabella just shrugged and went back to exploring the kitchen. As Eddie made his way around the far side of the couch, maneuvering his wheelchair so that it sat between the couch and the coffee table and made it easy to pull himself up onto the couch.  
  
His struggle onto the couch was only interrupted once by a fit of coughing that made him sink to one knee until he could recover. It took him a moment to catch his breath before he was able to push himself up onto the couch.  
  
Finally up, he stretched himself out and let his aching head sink back into the pillows, the pain easing off just a tad.   
  
"You got a bafroom?" Annabella's voice rolled like a storm.   
  
"It's down the hall to the right." Eddie cringed as he closed his eyes, his head feeling like it was going to explode, while she pounded off in the direction he'd given her.  
  
He sighed stuffily as his hand groped for the tissue box, pulling it in so that it rested on top of his chest. Hearing Annabella rattling around in the medicine cabinet above the sink.  
  
Good thing he had hid all the condom boxes in a different place.  
  
There was a moment of relaxation before something small and sandpapery rubbed across the bottom of his bare foot. Eddie jumped and his eyes snapped open, taking in the little black and white face of a pouting kitten.  
  
It squeaked a tiny noise that could barely pass for a meow and looked up at him with huge, green, pleading eyes. Eddie laughed and sat up, faltering when a wave of sickness washed over him by the redirected blood-flow.  
  
After it passed, he bent and picked up the kitten, lying back once again and placing it on the top of his chest, watching it. The kitten sat there for a moment before deciding to survey its new territory.   
  
Sushi walked up to his shoulder and looked him straight in the face, then she gave him a big sandpaper kiss on the chin. Eddie cringed and laughed, petting the cat with his thumb, getting a low purr going in the cat's throat.  
  
The cat nestled down against his neck, purring noisily now right below his ear as Eddie closed his eyes again, listening to the rhythmic vibration of the cat's throat as he slowly began to drift off into the darkness.  
  
He was drifting into the abyss when suddenly the hair on the back of his neck stood up on end and a strange feeling crept over him. Like he was in a warm place and was suddenly smothered by a cold shadow, almost like he was being watched.  
  
He groaned slightly and twitched, seeing if the feeling would remove itself from his skin, but it stayed. And, strangely, it moved, seeming to come closer and a series of sharp needles brushed across his skin.   
  
He took a deep breath in annoyance and reluctantly began to float back into consciousness, his eyes lazy to his command to open as they slowly fluttered apart to reveal -  
  
"HOLY SHIT!" Eddie yelled, his eyes wide and his breath stuck in his throat.   
  
Annabella was bent beside him, her ugly face hanging dangerously close to his, her fat cheeks drooping until they - oh god, that's what brushed against him. Eddie was completely repulsed as he closed his eyes and gently raised a hand, maneuvering it so that it was against her shoulder, and pushed her away.   
  
Annabella put up no resistance and stood up, her knees cracking. The crack would have been louder, Eddie guessed, if they had not been surrounded by a padding of corpulent flesh, the idea made him want to puke.  
  
"You awake now Alden?" Annabella asked, her voice making his spine shake and his stomach tie itself in knots.  
  
"I think I'm gonna be sick…" Eddie said more to himself, gently moving Sushi from his shoulder as he sat up.   
  
"You already sick." Annabella pointed out, something black stuck between her teeth, forcing Eddie to look away.  
  
"No," Eddie tried to explain as he stumbled in the direction of his wheelchair. He forced himself to move quickly, the bile already beginning to rise in his throat.  
  
Even though it was against doctor's orders to walk just yet, he had no choice. As fast as his legs would carry him, he fled to the bathroom, unable to close the door behind him as he fell to his knees and worshiped the porcelain god.  
  
Annabella rocked back on her heels and smiled to herself, taking her precious time as she waddled to the bathroom, seeing Eddie knelt over the toilet, all hell breaking loose.  
  
She reached over and took the hand-towel from the ring, waiting until he finally sat up before waddling into the bathroom. Eddie's face was dangerously pale and sweat speckled his forehead.  
  
Annabella bent down and handed him the towel, which he used to wipe the sweat from his head then wipe the spit from his chin.   
  
"You feel better now?" She asked, taking the towel back from him and watching him scoot back from the toilet.  
  
It took him a moment to gather his breath. "I-I don't think I can make it back-" He was about to finish his sentence with "without the wheelchair" but she interrupted.  
  
"Come," She threw out her flabby arms, reaching down and beginning to pluck him from the floor. "I carry you." Without any chance of escape, Eddie was gathered into her arms and squashed against her chest.  
  
He tried many times to object as she began to waddle back out into the living room, but he was only silenced.  
  
"Shush, shush." Annabella said like a mother to her child. "You sick. I take care of you." She smiled in friendliness at herself as she brought him around to the couch.  
  
Sushi peered up from the cushions at the awkwardly handled Eddie and the well-fed girth of Annabella, mewing softly.   
  
"Shoo!" Annabella commanded, Sushi seemed puzzled for a moment before she arched her back and fluffed her hair, showing her teeth and letting out a small hiss of animosity.  
  
Annabella just leaned back and laughed a booming laugh that could only be compared to an elephant dying. "Woah!" Eddie grabbed onto Annabella's shirt, not wanting to fall, her breath unnaturally hot against his arm.  
  
As she finished laughing, she leaned forward and brought her foot down as hard against the floor as she possibly could without breaking through, scaring the cat AND Eddie nearly half to death.  
  
Quick as lightening, the cat took off into China's room and scurried under the bed, Eddie having no such pleasure of escape.   
  
"Why you have cat anyway? Make you more sick what it does." Annabella mumbled rhetorically to herself as she set Eddie down on the couch, finally freeing him from a flabby fate of being swallowed whole.  
  
"No lying down," Annabella warned him and he looked agitatedly questioning at her. "You eat soon." He was about to object that he probably wouldn't be able to keep it down, but she stopped him again.  
  
"No argue, just stay up." She said, and from the daring look she gave her, he wasn't about to.  
  
"No move." She said, rising and lumbering off toward Eddie's bedroom.   
  
After she disappeared into the doorway, Eddie breathed a sigh of relief and hunched down on the couch. Jane was gonna pay for this…big time…  
  
Suddenly, Eddie became very cold, goosebumps breaking out across his arms as he sighed inwardly to himself, feeling like shit.  
  
Then, Annabella's footsteps resounded behind him, and he cringed. He jumped as something heavy fell across his shoulders and he looked up to see her motherly tucking a blanket around his neck and back.  
  
"Thanks," Eddie said between coughs, leaning forward to grab a tissue and pull the box in with him as he leaned back. Then Annabella came around front and tucked another blanket around his chest and neck, nearly suffocating him when she leaned over.  
  
"There." She smiled satisfactory to herself as she stood, surveying her handy work. "I go get food now." She set off to the kitchen where she had been cooking before.  
  
Eddie let his head fall back against the couch as he pulled the blankets more closely to his body, shivering slightly as a cold chill rolled up his spine. He tried to ignore it, letting his mind wander on more important things, like what he was going to do to Jane.  
  
Then quickly, Annabella made her faithful return with a tray steadily held in her pudgy hands, a bowl of steaming soup, a glass of water, a dozen saltines, and one immense, white pill set astray on it. She sat heavily down on the chair opposite Eddie.  
  
She cleared a spot on the coffee table as she set down the tray, smiling proudly at her dinner that actually didn't look too bad. Even though Eddie seriously doubted that he could keep anything down right now.  
  
"Eat now," Annabella boomed, watching as Eddie opened his mouth to object.  
  
"I don't think I can eat that right now…" Eddie mentioned, becoming fainthearted as her eyebrows raised and her eyes widened and she stared at him appallingly, as if he'd just said the most heinous of words.  
  
"Why?" She asked, threw out her arms in shock, signaling towards her food. "Does it not please you?" She seemed hurt that he did not want to eat her food.  
  
"No, Annabella." He tried to reason and calm the disgruntled beast that could easily eat HIM. "It's not your food, I'm sure it's wonderful. I just don't think I can keep anything down right now. I feel very sick."  
  
Annabella put her hands on her hips and turned her head so that she looked at him from the corner of her slitted eye, breathing heavily through her nose, blowing something out of it.  
  
Eddie held back a shudder, closing his eyes and trying to regain his somersaulting organs. She stared at him for a moment as if to confirm his story and then suddenly clamped a hand across his forehead, her hand covering well below his eyes as well.  
  
It felt like someone had pushed a recently soaked nylon filled with unprocessed sausage onto his head, unconsciously sensing that she was about to crush his skull at any second.  
  
After a moment, she released his head and he tried to regain his spinning thoughts, blinking away the fading lights of his eyes as his life flashed through his head.  
  
"You're very hot." She stated blandly, beginning to unpeel the blankets that he clutched closely to his freezing, shivering body. He had a moment of courage before it shallowed itself to a pitiful vulnerability.   
  
He clutched his arms around himself as he tried to keep at least a tiny bit of warmth against him. At the moment, he cursed his deceitful head.  
  
Annabella stared at him for a long while, screwing up her face as she seemed to be negotiating something in her head about him. Then she puckered out her lips and leaned forward and plucked the uncommonly large, white pill from the tray and stood difficulty up.  
  
Eddie was perplexed that she didn't offer him the water also.  
  
"What's that for?" He asked, confusion clogging his mind.  
  
"Turn over." Annabella stated.  
  
"Why?…"  
  
But suddenly, the horrific realization hit him square in the face.  
  
"Hell no." Eddie threw up his hands in defense, as if he was stopping a bullet.  
  
Annabella tilted her head and looked at him challengingly.  
  
"No. No, absolutely not." Eddie shook his head in disbelief and complete resistance.  
  
"You must." She stated in defense.  
  
"Do not even THINK about it. There is no way in HELL you're going to get close enough to stick that thing up my…hell no." He couldn't even finish his sentence, the thought was so revolting.  
  
"Alden!" Her voice was so loud that it literally shook the walls, one corner of the sheet across China's bedroom falling off of its nail.  
  
"Your wife pay me. I do my job. Now." She grabbed him roughly by the arm. "You turn over."   
  
It was now or never.  
  
"The fuck with that!" Eddie wrenched his arm free and sprang up from the couch before Annabella could react in time.  
  
In a second, he was stumbling over the top of the couch and landing dumbly on the floor on the other side, his legs giving out momentarily. He went just short of collapsing before he forced himself back up, hearing the monster roar behind him.  
  
"You not suppose to walk!"   
  
'Desperate times call for desperate measures.' The words flashed across his mind as he worked his legs in the direction of the bathroom, ignoring the swallowing headache that was beating on his brain.  
  
He swore he could feel her beefy fingers sweep past his shirt as she made a swipe for him, luckily coming up too short.  
  
He ran as fast as his legs would carry him, and he slid in to the bathroom with the beast pounding after him, her footsteps threatening to break through the ground.   
  
As he reached the bathroom, he turned and the seconds of complete terror as he watched the situation unfold, it bowed into slow motion, doing a play-by-play.  
  
"RRRRAAAAAHHHHH!!!!" Annabella yelled with a wide, oval-shaped mouth as she leapt solidly into the air, majestically getting all two-hundred-and-something pounds to lift off the ground and actually move in his direction.  
  
Her head swiveled as she flew through the air and her fatty rolls flopped from side to side as she came inch, by fatty inch, closer to him.  
  
His hands were slow as he groped blindly for the doorknob, his eyes not able to tear away from the flying woman that was soaring toward him.  
  
"NNNOOOOOO!!!!" Annabella fumed.   
  
It took time to find the door, almost too much time. Every second dragging on as though they lasted for an entire minute, everything rolling along.  
  
Eventually, he found the door and he put all his weight on it to shove it closed, hastily turning the lock as the last fatal minutes of his danger came within mere inches.  
  
The sound of a two-hundred-pound woman hitting a solid wooden door at mock one speed is indescribable! The groaning of the wood as she slides down the amazingly unbroken wood is disgustingly astounding!   
  
Eddie stood in silence for a split-second, everything replaying in one, deft flash.   
  
But the silence didn't last.  
  
The beast still lived.  
  
Suddenly, there was the sound of fingernails digging into the door as Annabella clawed her way back up onto her feet, the breath having been compressed out of her with her fall.   
  
She wheezed a sound so horrifying that the hair on the back of Eddie's neck stood straight up on end, threatening to pull right out of his skin.  
  
Then the wheezing suddenly became mixed with the sound of her beefy fist rhythmically pounding against the door.   
  
He guessed that she lacked the breath to call out his name whilst she pounded, and horror struck his throat as she began to frantically turn the handle to the door, not letting the small fact that it be locked stop her.  
  
He began to back away from the door, swearing with all his heart that he heard the wood begin to splinter beneath her pounding fist.   
  
"No…" He whispered beneath his breath, inconceivable that it could happen, but feign to reality.   
  
"No…no…no…no…" He shook his head and continued backing away from the door, his hands held out to protect himself and his footsteps unheeded.  
  
That's when it happened. That's when fate took control.  
  
He took one fatal step backward, right onto a sideways bottle that Annabella had negligently thrown to the floor while she had rummaged through the medicine cabinet.   
  
In one, fluid motion he was thrown up into the air and smashed backwards into the ground, his head striking the side of the bathtub and leaving a long, red smear as blackness thundered over him.  



	3. Go Away. I’m all right. – Last words of ...

CHAPTER III  
Go Away. I'm all right. - Last words of H. G. Wells  
  
"Eddie?"   
  
The voice floated to him as if from a dream.  
  
"Eddie, honey. Wake up." The voice of the angel drifted into his ear again, a smooth, soft hand caressing the side of his cheek and arousing him from the inky darkness.  
  
He moaned and jerked, trying to cling onto the last thread of comforting blackness that slipped away and he was suddenly plummeted into a world full of pain.  
  
"Come on baby, open your eyes…" The angel spoke again.  
  
He twitched spasmodically and began to do what the angel instructed, his eyelids heavy and his vision doubled as he finally got them open.   
  
"That's it…" The angel coaxed.  
  
Suddenly, the light of the outside room flared in his head and he whimpered and recoiled back into the darkness of his head, closing his eyes again.  
  
"Eddie…" But he cut off the angel.  
  
"Oh god…" His voice was low and grating. "Did she kill me?"  
  
"Baby," The angel slipped their dainty hand into his, squeezing it gently, ignoring him. "You need to open your eyes for me."   
  
He was about to open his mouth in question when suddenly he was violated. An uninvited someone suddenly interceding without compliance.  
  
"Mr. Alden?" The voice was rough and uncaring. "Are you conscious sir?" Someone was wrenching open his right eye and shining a blinding pen light into his eye.  
  
Eddie grunted and recoiled deeper into the darkness, pulling away from the blinding touch.  
  
"Sir?" It asked again.  
  
"Yes. I'm conscious. Leave me alone." Eddie demanded, still holding onto the hand of his angel.  
  
He heard the angel speak to the rough voice and tell them that they had better go.  
  
He smiled. Though he hadn't expected heaven to be so mean.  
  
Then the hand was back stroking his face.  
  
"Please baby, open your eyes and show me you're okay." The angel seemed worried.  
  
Eddie sighed and slowly began opening his eyes again, not wanting the angel to be worried anymore. He held back the pressing pain of a monstrous headache as his vision slowly slurred back together, two images becoming one, and he looked up into the smiling face of his angel, his wife, Jane Alden.  
  
He was suddenly filled with relief as he began to sit up and wrap his arms around her shoulders in comfort, but was suddenly pulled back by an immense pain in his head.  
  
He moaned and twisted in the bed sheets, the pain in his head overtaking him with such a force he could barely move.   
  
"Eddie, calm down." Jane said, still stroking his face with her fingers.   
  
"Do you remember what happened?"   
  
He couldn't bear to shake his head.  
  
She took the silence as a 'no'.   
  
"You tripped and hit your head against the bathtub, you've been unconscious for almost four hours."  
  
"Where? Where am I?" He asked in a soft whisper.  
  
"You're home baby," Jane squeezed his hand again. "Everything's gonna be okay."  
  
"My head." He groaned, raising a hand to his head and feeling the IV taped in the crook of his elbow shift at the motion.  
  
"You hit it pretty hard," Jane pulled his hand away before he had a chance to touch it. "The medication should be setting in soon." There was a fresh bandage around his head and she didn't want him to mess with it.  
  
Eddie slowly opened his eyes again, letting Jane's concerned face float into his head and eventually correct itself. Then he remembered.  
  
"Where is she?" Eddie said, his voice ricocheting through his head like thunder in a metal room. He tried to sit up again, despite the pain, and nausea, and Jane's pushing hand on his shoulder.  
  
"Just lie back. Relax for a while," Jane cooed, smiling when he surrendered to a slanted position against the pillows in the bed. She waited until he was somewhat comfortable.   
  
"Who?"  
  
"Her. Anne-belly or whatever. The crazy bitch that did this to me." His mind was in a haze and he knew he had gotten the name wrong.  
  
"Annabella?" Jane corrected, still holding both his hands.  
  
Eddie nodded lightly, bringing forth more pain.  
  
Jane suddenly got red in the cheeks as her face was overcome with embarrassment.  
  
Eddie's face dropped in despair.  
  
"What?" He asked slowly, fearing the answer.  
  
"Well, uh…" Jane started, but suddenly there came the sound.  
  
"He awake now?" Speak of the devil. The incarnate of a sprinkled donut stood in all her flabby glory in the doorway of his room.  
  
Eddie's breathing became dangerously short.  
  
Jane's fingers loosened as she began to slip away, in a strange way, protecting herself. "Well, baby…" She said, smiling meekly. "When I came home and had to pry off the door to the bathroom to find you unconscious on the floor and had to call the paramedics…"  
  
She smiled again as if it would save her.  
  
"Um…" Jane cleared her throat, the tension in the room becoming almost a tangible choking hazard. "Annabella offered to take care of you for the rest of the afternoon free of charge while I still have some meetings and stuff to go to…"  
  
She trailed off, now with her back against the wall; a safe distance from her bed-ridden, wounded, awe struck husband who could just about pass for a ghost right now, due to the fact that he was so pale.  
  
Eddie's wide eyes slowly met the face of his living nightmare.   
  
Annabella's right eye was covered in taped gauze and her nose was bruised to a point where she looked like a person that would make a drunken pirate pee his pants at the sight of. She was smiling a huge, yellow smile that sent a shiver rolling down Eddie's spine.  
  
Eddie had his mouth agape as his eyes slowly rolled back to the face of his wife, who was smiling too broadly for the situation. She seemed really, really nervous by the fact that her eyes were switching back and forth so quickly that they moved in a blink.   
  
Jane could feel the beads of sweat rolling down her forehead as she quickly thought of something to do. Impulsively she looked down at her wristwatch, over-acting things.  
  
"Oh. WOW! Just LOOK at the time!" She said like an actor so wooden that you would want to spray Liquid Pledge on her. "I need to go."  
  
She headed towards the door, Annabella sliding out of the way without a second thought and smiling thoughtfully as Jane rushed by. It was obvious Annabella liked women more then men. In fact, she probably ATE men for dinner.  
  
"I'll be home in a little while," Jane called from the hallway. "I love you."  
  
But Eddie didn't answer.  
  
He was too preoccupied with his 6'5" sumo-slayer that was using herself as a blockade to the doorway should he decide to escape. She had a look on her face that dared him to move a finger, and told him that if he did, he'd lose it.  
  
It's when he heard the door shut behind Jane that he knew his fate was sealed.  
  
"So…" Annabella drug out her word, her tongue thick, her pudgy legs carrying her into the room as she squeezed through the doorframe. "You know now what happen when you disobey doctor orders."  
  
She shut the door behind her, turning the lock in her bulgy fingers without even having to look back. She kept herself always in front of the door as she lumbered forwards toward the bed, coming closer, and closer, and closer.  
  
Eddie scooted back in the bed, ignoring the pain in his head, the IV hooked up to him, and the fact that his legs refused to move at the moment. But she kept coming.  
  
"You still very sick Alden."   
  
Like she needed to tell him. He was about to lose his nonexistent lunch again by her stench wafting into his nose.  
  
His wheelchair was in the far corner, behind Annabella. He had no salvation.  
  
One misplaced distraction and she swooped in for the kill.   
  
Quick as a fat bolt of lightening, she grabbed Eddie's IV-free arm and twisted it behind him, making his body spasmodically contort around so that he was on his side. And in his few last seconds he watched with utter shock.   
  
And that's when she did it.   
  
The most horrifying thing that has ever happened on the face of the earth.  
  
  
  
  
  
She pulled out…  
  
  
  
  
THE WHITE PILL!!!!  
  
  
  
"No!" Eddie screamed.   
  
"No! No! No! No! No…"  
  
  
  
  
  
"…"  
  
  
  
THE END  



End file.
